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I'm going to miss the Mid-Ocean News. It regularly had stuff in it that you didn't hear anywhere else. Sometimes it was important stuff.

I know there were a lot of people who detested the Mid-Ocean News, and didn't believe some of the things that were written in it.

But the paper was probably rewarding for them anyway: At least it helped them understand what "the other side" was thinking.

With the paper's demise - this is Bermuda's first weekend without it - it's a good time to look at two of the killer issues: money and credibility.

The Mid-Ocean had big problems with both... but just about every piece of Bermuda media suffers the same ailments to some degree.

I believe there are far more newspaper, magazine and website pages, and far more minutes on our TV and radio broadcasts, than a small place like Bermuda can support.

There are fewer people advertising - especially now that most classified ads are free on the Internet, and most of the full-page department store ads have disappeared.

And the ads are spread so thin across so many different media that we end up with a lot of under-paid journalists trying to fill a lot of empty space.

The result is a lot of good work diluted with a lot of mediocre filler.

There is too little time spent on complex issues that really matter and too much time spent filling space with whatever can be found in a hurry.

Too many stories are told only from a single viewpoint, or from two opposing viewpoints. Frequently, there simply isn't the time or staff for a newsroom to do convincing, independent research.

I wish we had fewer journalists, and paid more money to fill less space. They could do a better job reporting on issues that really matter to a lot of people, and less time filling space with inane features.

We need better stories

That's why I wish the local media were more compact, with shorter TV news programmes and fewer local news pages. We should have fewer, better, and better-paid reporters producing fewer, better-researched and more significant news stories.

In other words, quality instead of quantity.

Reporting would be more thorough. Complicated, controversial issues could be covered in a more sophisticated and nuanced way.

There should be less temptation to fill empty space by "hyping" stories that aren't really very important or that haven't been adequately researched.

It could also help the media gain credibility by making the profession more attractive to educated Bermudians, especially educated black Bermudians.

Right now, there isn't enough money to coax enough talented and educated Bermudians into journalism.

Those who do start journalism careers, more often then not, are lured away later by higher-paying jobs in government or international business.

They may love journalism and be good at it too, but they end up with kids, mortgages and lot of other expensive responsibilities.

Attracting more blacks to the profession is important because the media in Bermuda is widely perceived as a white operation, and to a large extent it really is. In a society as racially divided as ours, the media's predominant whiteness hinders its ability to gather news.

Black reporters are far more likely to have good contacts in a country that is mostly black.

And black Bermudians, black organizations and institutions - including the ruling Progressive Labour Party - are more likely to trust black reporters to understand their issues and report on them fairly.

If we could have media that isn't controlled by whites - or by premiers or political parties, while we're at it - credibility would be boosted even more.

The Mid-Ocean News suffered painfully from this problem. It led the way with many important stories - most notably those exposing corruption in the Bermuda Housing Corporation.

But the impact was deadened by the reluctance of too many Bermudians to believe what they were reading, and their willingness to accept Government's claims that they were victims of racist, partisan propaganda.

The death of the Mid-Ocean News, after 98 years, is a reminder that the Bermuda media finds itself in a challenging and painful era of transition.

The traditional way things worked is changing - technologically, financially, politically and racially.

But these are difficult times for our country too.

The need for solid reporting, for the problems and achievements of our community to be recorded and understood, for the abuse of power to be exposed, is more urgent than ever.

All it takes is money. And credibility.[[In-content Ad]]

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